The future is in safe hands
Young Scientist event opens with range of projects that can make life more harmonious
PRESIDENT Michael D Higgins opened the BT Young Scientist exhibition with a rousing speech inspiring a young generation to use their innovative spirit to build a more humane society.
The 54th annual exhibition, which kicked off officially yesterday, saw 2,500 students from across Ireland bring 550 projects focusing on social and behavioural sciences as well as chemistry and biology.
Politics and society was also firmly on the agenda, with children using social science projects to discuss even the most sensitive issues, including abortion, Brexit, global warming and our ageing population.
This year’s exhibition also shows the increasing strength of young female scientists, with the highest ever percentage – 60pc – taking part.
BT Ireland’s managing director Shay Walsh, told the Irish Independent he was delighted to see the success of young females in science, as this was bucking a trend that had dominated for so many years.
“This itself denies the old stereotype that science is for boys,” Mr Walsh said. “This event today demonstrates science is for both sexes and more and more girls are entering.
“This is the highest number of girls to date. It’s fantastic to see.”
Mr Walsh said he had been heartened to see how socially minded the young entrants had been this year, adding that students had clearly been affected by “societal issues” using their “imagination and curiosity to try to solve important issues”.
“The social and behavioural science aspect has really grown and it’s blending into the science element,” he said.
“We are seeing more projects than ever before on anxiety and mental health issues and that’s a good thing.
“This reminds us that our future is in very safe hands.”
President Higgins, who attended the event with his wife Sabina, received lengthy applause after an inspirational speech encouraging young scientists to invent beyond the needs of the market, and to think for the good of Ireland and beyond.
This year’s entries, more than ever before, have been dominated by sociallyminded projects aiming to make the future lives of the young more harmonious. The President was visibly delighted to see such compassion in the young. President Higgins noted the large presence of projects aimed at social media and stated that now more than ever young people were dealing with how to handle such technology and how it should be “developed into our world”.
He told his young audience that this generation would be the one to deal with the “destruction” caused by previous generations and “you will enable us to make the advances in sustaining our planet”, he added.
He pointed to the importance of using new inventions to maintain agriculture in Ireland, to help build Africa into an equal society, to improve the environment as Ireland faces the challenges of global warming, and to combat infectious disease and poverty.
He said the young, with such “enthusiasm and scientific endeavour, give us hope”.
It was vital to produce new inventions and ideas not just “for those who consume”, he added, but “for all humanity, intergenerationally, in a way to address so many wrongs”.
Business Minister Heather Humphreys, Disabilities Minister Finian McGrath and presidential hopeful, independent senator Gerard Craughwell, attended the event yesterday.
Education Minister Richard Bruton is expected to attend today and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar may also make an appearance.
Last year’s winner Shane Curran, from Terenure College, Dublin, won a prize pot of €5,000 for his data storage solution. This year’s prize has increased to €7,500.
The winner will also be treated to a trip to Bletchley Park, the home of the World War II codebreakers, in Milton Keynes, England.
The European Young Scientist exhibition will take place at the RDS in Dublin, the home of the event this week. That show will be staged in September.
One of the highlights this week, aside from the entrants, will be an audience with Kevin Mitnick, a hacker turned security consultant.
Mr Mitnick, who was once on the FBI’s most-wanted list, will deliver a keynote speech this evening, which aims to encourage companies to revisit their approach to security.